Five Truths
by Lisse
Summary: Just like the title says. Five facts about various shinobi, updated sporadically and as time permits.
1. Iruka

_Disclaimerage:_ So not mine. Written for fun, not profit.

* * *

Five Truths:

Iruka

* * *

1.

He takes after his mother in looks and personality. She was an unremarkable chuunin, content to retire from active duty after her son was born, and his memories of her are full of laughter and patient smiles and the occasional terrifying bellow when he pushed his limits just a little too far.

His father is a more elusive figure - a jounin, fond of traditional dress, tall to the point of imposing, never one to participate in his wife and son's lively conversations - but Iruka remembers being carried on his shoulders or under one arm; he knows with absolute conviction that his father loved children.

* * *

2.

Even before his parents die, he is one of the least motivated students in his class. Before the Kyuubi, he has no inclination to be a shinobi beyond some general sense of filial duty. After the Kyuubi, he sees no reason to try.

What finally motivates him - even if he'd never admit it - is the realization that his teachers expect him to fail, and the only way he knows to get back at them (short of rigging tripwires around the blackboard again) is to prove them utterly and completely wrong.

Iruka has always been exactly as stubborn as he chooses to be.

* * *

3.

He has outlived a little over a quarter of his students. He would know; he keeps track.

* * *

4.

More often than not he strays from the sanctioned curriculum. There is nothing in his training or his classroom manuals that requires him to tell his students to be careful, to keep an eye on each other, to keep their missions in perspective and most of all to _not get killed_.

Sometimes this approach has caused problems, but he doesn't mind. He has little time and less patience for parents who consider their daughters and sons weapons or instruments or a means to an end. In his classroom he is something close to untouchable; he has argued with clan heads and squad leaders and S-rank shinobi who have either forgotten or never knew what it was like to be an ordinary child.

There are many many reasons he will never be a jounin. Winning these battles is just the most important of them.

* * *

5.

He has never and probably will never be able to articulate exactly what one particular student means to him.

All the same, he is as proud of Uzumaki Naruto as any parent could ever hope to be.


	2. Ino

_Disclaimerage:_ So not mine. Written for fun, not profit.

* * *

Five Truths:

Ino

* * *

1.

The Yamanaka flower business began as a front for an espionage team. Ino's mother is the one who took it into her head to make it legitimate. All the same, Ino learns the flower language long before she forms her first handseals, and even her most innocent bouquets contain secret messages - a particular arrangement, chosen to suit whatever she feels each customer's situation requires.

The first bouquet she ever makes for Asuma means (more or less) "ask her out you jerk" - because she knows he's getting it for Kurenai and also that boys are hopeless in matters of romance no matter how old they are.

The one she puts on his grave means something between "thank you" and "I'm sorry."

* * *

2.

Everyone forgets that she was near the head of her class. If she had been born in a different year, with less flashy or brilliant or just plain peculiar agemates, she would have easily been the center of attention.

Sometimes she remembers to be annoyed about that.

* * *

3.

Her family's jutsu is intended for intelligence and espionage. Ino has no interest in that sort of thing - she is too straightfoward, too flashy, too _blunt_ - and so she takes up the role of medic-nin as a way to make herself useful.

When asked, she says it's because she refuses to lose to Sakura.

* * *

4.

She falls in and out of love easily, depending on her mood and the weather and how desirable the boy (and occasionally the girl) in question is to other people - and sometimes how much it makes Shikamaru roll his eyes and Chouji laugh.

Friendships are another matter entirely. She selects them carefully and is terribly picky about them, to the point where she can count her real friends on one hand, with two fingers left over.

* * *

5.

The flowers she arranges for Sakura would look like this: "you're my best friend" and "you surpassed me a long time ago" - with a little bundle of "I'm _still_ prettier than you" sitting smugly in the middle of the bouquet.


End file.
